croatian occupational terminology: the 2000s’ escape from

Croatian Occupational Terminology: the 2000s’Escape from “a Man’s World”

Milinović Hrga, Anđela

Source / Izvornik: Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics, 2018, 54, 377 - 406

Journal article, Accepted versionRad u časopisu, Završna verzija rukopisa prihvaćena za objavljivanje (postprint)

https://doi.org/10.1515/psicl-2018-0015

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article published in Poznan Studies in Contemporary Linguistics 54(3): 377-406

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/psicl-2018-0015

1

Anđela Milinović Hrga

University of Split

Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences

Split, Croatia

Croatian Occupational Terminology: the 2000s’ Escape from “a Man’s

World”

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the forms of expression of occupational terms in contemporary

Croatian institutional practice, typical of the changes in language policy and public language usage.

Predominant in Croatian language was the androcentric practice of using masculine occupational

terms as unmarked, gender-neutral. However, due to various reasons, it has changed in past years.

The 2008 Amendments to the Croatian National Classification of Occupations marked the turning

point in gender equality in terms of providing for gender-specific occupational nouns. For the first

time, an official document codified both masculine and feminine occupational titles and stipulated

their usage as a national classification standard, thus acknowledging a significant language change.

However, the 2008 and 2010 Classifications both displayed certain asymmetries as well. The paper

pinpoints these asymmetries, documents elements of linguistic sexism still remaining, as well as

successful “escapes” from it, and tries to determine whether imbalances and barriers within the

binary masculine-feminine concept are brought about by intralinguistic (lexical) or extralinguistic

factors.

Keywords: gender-specific occupational terms; language policy interventions; language planning;

feminine/female forms; Croatian National Classification of Occupations.

1. Introduction

If language is perceived as a creation and reflection of a society and its members,

representing their particular reality, social hierarchy, etc., then, taking the perspective of

linguistic determinism (Mills 1995), it is also possible and necessary to intervene in language,

to plan it and change it if the sociolinguistic challenges require such actions.

This brings to mind the presidential oath taken by Croatia‟s first female president

Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović in February 2015, which can be seen as illustrative of a rather

strong “people=male” bias (Silveira 1980), still dominant in the society, particularly in the

legislative discourse. When Kolinda Grabar-Kitarović was sworn in as President of Croatia at

an inaugural ceremony, she took the oath using the masculine gender nouns with the overall

masculine agreement: dužnost predsjednika „duty of the President‟ and hrvatski državni

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poglavar „Croatian Head of State‟. It was required by the ceremony in order not to challenge

the legality of the procedure. From the linguistic perspective, this was unnecessary in the

given context, since the presidential oath with feminine noun and the overall feminine

agreement – hrvatska državna poglavarica – sworn by a female referent would have changed

neither the content nor the meaning of the oath; on the contrary, this was a situation where a

referentially motivated gender-aware language should have been used. Quite different is the

situation with the phrase dužnost predsjednika; in the (con)text of the oath, it expresses the

function, therefore, a referential feminine form would be incorrect.

Although Croatian language has the linguistic tools for distinguishing genders, they

have been applied to occupational terminology within official regulations since only recently.

The significant language policy interventions towards gender awareness in Croatian

institutional practice in the 2000s, which are the focus of this paper, have been triggered by

changes in the society and by significant efforts to correct gender inequality in many

terminological fields. Gender sensitivity as to the masculine and feminine occupational terms

within public language usage has thus become more prominent. Gender-specific occupational

terms can be generated easily in Croatian using several productive suffixes. By adopting a

language planning perspective in the 2000s, the Croatian occupational terminology has been

prescribed as national classification standard. These language interventions have thus had

significant effects in terms of “legalising” occupational terminology. The use of language in

terms of gender awareness within Croatian occupational titles may be perceived as a

reflection of the language policy supported by institutional mechanisms.

1.1 Theoretical framework and methodology

Although a number of studies have dealt with the motion and motal word formation1

in general in Croatian language (e. g. Barić 1987; Barić 1988; Barić 1989; Babić 2006; Silić

2004 etc.), the topic has never been approached by analysing the “legalised” gender-sensitive

document regulating occupational terminology from the feminist perspective, with the focus

on the asymmetrical representation of women and men in the document structure.

Previous research suggested there was a lack of terminologisation of occupational

nouns, especially in view of insecurity and hesitation with alternative occupational forms

within certain professional fields (cf. Barić 1987; Mihaljević and Štebih Golub 2010;

Motschenbacher and Weikert 2015). Comparing gender expression in Bosnian, Serbian and

Croatian, Hentschel states: “Even for Croatian, where new linguistic norms have been

1 The terms „motion‟ mocija and „motal word formation‟ mocijska tvorba in Croatian refer to pair nouns of

opposing biological sexes, usually derived from common stems.

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developed quite successfully in domains like orthography or lexicon, the gender-related

questions have not been taken into consideration.“ (2003: 306) After the publication of her

research, the matter of how to form correct feminines in Croatian has been resolved by

prescribing the national occupational classification and there should be no more uncertainty

about which form to use in a given situation. Similar actions by feminist linguists in Serbia

have recently caused nationalist counter-reactions, wondering if Serbian language is turning

into Croatian (Rajilić 2017).2

Study has proved that feminine occupational terms are far more frequently used in

Croatian than in Serbian (Mihaljević and Štebih Golub 2010). For comparison purposes, in

Russian, masculine/male terms for female reference with nouns denoting occupation are

evaluated positively even by women (Bukarica 1999; Doleschal and Schmid 2001: 260) – this

is not the case in Croatian.

The goal of this study is to investigate systematically the linguistic representation of

women and men in the language structure of the Croatian occupational classifications,

evaluate the results of the terminological changes implemented in the corpus, document

asymmetries and offer proposals to eliminate some of the identified terminological and word-

forming problems in terms of sexist practices. Its scope is limited to an analysis of these

features at the word level within the provided occupation lists, through the panoptic of the

second wave feminism issues of the overt language sexism as defined by Mills (2008),

evident in the generic masculine forms. Androcentric generics and asymmetrical gender-

marking are core elements in linguistic sexism (Hellinger and Pauwels 2007). According to

Mills (2008: 159), the exposure of linguistic sexism is necessary in order to change sexist

structures in the society.

However, some studies have reminded of the limitations of the feminist language

planning, pointing out that the grammatical and referential genders are not readily

reconcilable and that “‟feminification‟ in every (con)text (…) leads to semantic chaos and

grammatical incorrectness” (Martinović 2015). This is contrary to the feminist‟s theories of

language sexism, but in line with the post-structuralist theories that grammatical gender is not

inherently discriminating, it merely opens a possibility to be used in such manner

(Hornscheidt 2006: 77-83).

2 In 2003, describing the expression of gender in Serbian, Hentschel stressed that the question of which of the

three possibilities (generic masculines, an analytical structure with masculine nouns and „female‟ modifiers,

derived feminines) was to be preferred in occupational titles for women had indeed remained unresolved as it

had been fifty years before.

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Since the examples of the generic masculine as the expressions of overt sexism are

easy to identify in the 1998 National Classification, and the 2008 and 2010 classifications

have challenged the overt sexism in occupational framework by providing feminine nouns in

almost every instance, second wave feminist approach is more applicable to the occupational

terms analysis presented in this paper.

1.2 Language planning measures to increase female linguistic visibility

In Croatian (and not only in Croatian), the masculine gender functions as unmarked

and covers both sexes – male and female – while the feminine form covers female sex

exclusively. The generic masculine forms have therefore become the prevailing type in the

nomenclature, in all laws and regulations.3 The generic masculine form in the legislation has

its origins in the tradition of the Roman Law, very rooted in Croatian language, which

influenced the gender choice. It is largely known that in Roman Civil Law masculine form

covered both sexes. This was transferred to Croatian legislative discourse (Glovacki-Bernardi

cites from the Corpus Iuris Civilis: Pronuntiatio sermonis in sexu masculino ad utrum sexum

plerumque porrigatur (2008: 86)).

The second wave feminism in the 1970s and 1980s closely studied and challenged

linguistic sexism, defining it as a gender-biased use of a language in a manner discriminatory

towards women. The use of generic masculines as supposedly gender-neutral results in

women being invisible in a language.

Although overt sexism has been exposed and challenged by feminists since the 1960s,

in Croatia, an extensive institutional campaign against gender asymmetry when it comes to

occupational terms has been in place since the early 2000s. Social norms often dictate that

men occupy higher positions, while women tend to be at a lower occupational level, and these

gender stereotypes are linguistically reflected in the non-existence of parallel masculine and

feminine occupational terms for every profession. The social issues and effects are therefore

implicit in the language representation of women and men and confirm the social role theory

put forward by Alice H. Eagly (1987); according to her, gender is enacted through the roles

3 Article 43 of the Gender Equality Act states: ”Words and terms that are gender-specific shall refer equally to

the masculine and feminine gender regardless of whether they are used in the masculine or feminine gender in

laws and other regulations” (Official Gazette, No 82/08). This formulation is generally used in the introductory

parts of Croatian legislation as a compromise of a sort. Its intention is not to saturate the text with additional

gender specific formulations, which could affect the clarity of the layout, comprehension and cohesion. Needless

to say, in Croatian, gender awareness is not expressed only by using feminine form nouns, since the overall

agreement (pronouns, adjectives, numbers, participles) has to be changed as well.

However, it will be the masculine forms that will be chosen as generative, and this is a typical feminist linguistic

issue. On the other hand, this is a familiar procedure with highly flectional languages, described usually as a

necessity to avoid stylistic cumbersomeness (cf. Hellinger and Bussmann 2001: 20).

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people play. The relatively late occurrence of such challenging of linguistic sexism in Croatia

has to do – partly, at least – with the socio-historical situation. At least two reasons should be

highlighted here: first, the Homeland War Croatia was caught up in in the early 1990s left no

time to deal with linguistic choices; second, the women's movement gained more strength in

Croatia in the late 1990s/early 2000s, thus shedding light on linguistic issues as well.

A significant change in Croatian gender equality legislation has been prompted in the

early 2000s. The process of raising consciousness of gender sensitivity within occupational

terms was instigated by Croatian institutions‟ commitment to implement European gender

equality legislation.

The public response instigated the change as well – the Office for Gender Equality

insisted on the use of a gender-neutral language in the governmental bodies. Furthermore, in

2004, an alliance of female non-governmental organizations Women’s Network Croatia

observed gender discrimination against women in the 1998 Croatian National Classification

of Occupations and demanded that the document‟s compliance with the Constitution be

revised.4 This simultaneously happened in other spheres as well.

In accordance with the social changes, the Act on Gender Equality was enacted in

Croatia in 2008. It marked the beginning of equal treatment of sexes in Croatian legislation.

Its Article 14 determines the following: “All education institutions, as well as all other

institutions shall, in their degrees, certificates, licences and diplomas, use the linguistic

standards pursuant to this Act, indicating professional qualifications, professions and

occupations in the feminine or masculine gender, depending on the sex of the recipient” (http:

//www.mvep.hr/zakoni/pdf/476.pdf). Furthermore, the Gender Equality Act stipulates that

public bodies, local and regional self-government units, legal persons with public authorities,

education and scientific institutions and legal persons majority-owned by the state shall apply

gender-specific terminology and promote gender equality. Sanctions in the form of fines are

also stipulated for violating the Gender Equality Act.

The gender perspective was then integrated into the 2008 Amendments to the National

Classification of Occupations. The goal of the measures was to provide feminine terms to the

predominantly masculine nouns within the existing official occupational classification and to

make the use of parallel feminine and masculine terms obligatory in the public sphere. It was

a prerequisite for effective language policy measures promoting gender equality in

occupational terms. This classification stipulates the gender-specific terminology usage as the

4 http: //www.zenska-mreza.hr/Aktivnosti/klasifikacija_zanimanja.htm

http://www.mvep.hr/zakoni/pdf/476.pdf

http://www.mvep.hr/zakoni/pdf/476.pdf

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national classification standard. It has been coordinated with Croatia‟s Ministry of Economy,

Entrepreneurship and Crafts and Croatian Employment Service and it is also recommended by

the European Commission to be used in censuses.

In line with Pauwels‟ definition of feminist language reforms as a type of language

planning (1998), since the Croatian occupational terminology has been published in the

official gazette, thus codifying the occupational gender onomastics, the occupational

classification may be perceived as the instrument of language planning, making women

“visible” in occupational terminology.

2. Deriving feminine (occupational) forms in Croatian

The Croatian language has such an elaborate morphological structure that makes it

easy to express and recognise genders, which is typical of the highly inflected Slavic

languages. It distinguishes three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. They are

distinguished by the nominative singular form (morpheme). Nouns that denote animate beings

are in many cases logically assigned to gender based on natural sex. However, this is only

partially valid; gender assignment can be influenced by other factors –usually by the

morphology of nouns, by the type of their declension and their meaning (semantic), or by

agreement (see Babić et al. 2007; Corbett 1991, 2006; Motschenbacher and Weikert 2015).

Croatian language has at its disposal the devices required for identifying feminine/female

nouns, using the morphologically gender-specific nouns. Most nouns indicating a person

typically form pair nouns of opposing biological sexes. If they are derived from common

stems, these are generative motion pairs (for example, učitelj/učiteljica „male/female teacher‟)

(Barić 1987: 10).5

Nouns designating females are derived by adding the suffixes -a, -ica, -inja, -ka, -kinja

(cf. Babić 2006: 82–83; Barić et al. 1997: 310–312; Silić and Pranjković 2007: 171–173). 6

The suffix -ica is the most productive in standard Croatian. It is followed by –ka, -inja,

-kinja and finally, -a as the least productive one (Barić 1987: 12). The distribution of these

suffixes depends primarily on the sociolinguistic factor, standardization history etc.

5 When pairs of opposing biological sexes are expressed with two different stems, two suppletive forms (for

example, otac/majka „father/mother‟), in Croatian linguistic literature this is sometimes referred to as lexical or

suppletive motion (cf. Silić and Pranjković 2007: 173; Barić 1987: 10). 6 The definitions of motion pairs in contemporary Croatian grammars and normative handbooks predominantly

specify the derivational direction from masculine to feminine forms. From the feminist perspective, the only

gender-fair definition of motion pairs is provided for in the Croatian grammar by Silić and Pranjković (2007:

171–173, cf. Pišković 2011: 102–113). They define the common stems and various morphemes denoting male

and female referents, without specifying that masculine forms are the basis or the prerequisite from which

feminine forms are derived.

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The suffix -ica is distributed on the nouns ending with -ač, -aš, -ar, -er, -or, -telj.

Semantically, it denotes both the female occupation/function and the matrimonial status.7 For

example, historically profesorica did not denote „female professor‟ at all nor mlinarica

conveyed the meaning of a „woman miller‟. Following the same sociolinguistic pattern, these

forms were titles for the „wife of the male referent‟. The suffix -ica is also homonymous with

the diminutive suffix -ica (e.g. mamica „mummy‟) and an identical suffix is used to derive

nouns denoting tools (sijačica – both „sower‟ as tool and female occupation, cf. Babić 1991:

155). This may cause potential difficulties in terms of possible semantic confusion when

deriving feminine occupational forms and this issue has been a concern of Croatian feminist

linguists (cf. Bertoša 2001).

The suffix -ka is distributed to the masculine nouns ending with the consonants -j, -l, -

lj, -m, -n, -r, -v; or the suffixes -in, -(a)k and -(a)c, which are then reduced. Croatian linguists

have somewhat different opinions as regards the problem of the reduction of these suffixes.

Barić stresses the fact that these feminines are not directly derived from masculines in this

case, although, semantically, they are of opposing biological sexes. Nonetheless, there is no

direct word-forming connection between them; that is, the common stem is the adjective, verb

or noun, and suffixes are added to coin both masculines and feminines. For example, tkalac

and tkalja „male/female weaver‟ are both motivated by the same verb tkati ‟to weave‟. Babić

takes that view into consideration, acknowledging the fact that it could be explained

differently, but he interprets it as feminines derived from masculine stems after reducing

suffixes -in, -ak, -ac. He is supporting his argument with the need to be practical for the sake

of systematics and uniformity within motal word-formation (Babić 1991: 257). Of course,

from the feminist perspective, this sort of argumentation is unacceptable.

The suffix -inja is usually added to the masculine nouns with a stem ending with -k, -

g, -h (Babić 1991: 268).

The suffix -kinja is distributed to nouns with stems ending with -t, -d and -f (Babić

1991: 269).

The suffix -a is not very productive in motal word formation, but within the

occupational field, it is used to derive feminine academic title magistra „master‟, which has a

high frequency of occurrence in Croatian higher education system after implementing the

Bologna Process reforms.

7 The function of expressing (matrimonial) “belonging“ using such a suffix is found, for example, in German as

well (cf. Posch 2014: 108).

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2.1 The historical development of occupational nouns in Croatian language

The historical development of occupational nouns in Croatian language has been

influenced by social factors, the most important among them being the changes in the labour

market and (equal) participation of women in the work sector.

Although it is possible to equally use masculine and feminine occupational titles as

needed, initially there were only masculine forms for most professions (mostly due to the fact

that these professions were performed predominantly by men). The stereotypically female

professions usually related to household (e.g. prelja, „spinner‟, kućanica, „housewife‟), and

only took feminine gender. However, along with the females entering the labour market, more

feminine forms appeared in language practice as well. A study has indicated that the first

feminine occupational terms were recorded quite early, although the masculine forms of

occupational terms are more frequent and predominant in Croatian dictionaries (Matas

Ivanković 2006). The saturation of lexicographic definitions with masculine forms could be

explained as a tendency of dictionaries to reproduce and reflect sociolinguistic context, thus

adopting the existing social bias or sexist language views. Cf. Mihaljević 2013.

The first feminine occupational term odvjetnica „female lawyer‟ was noted in the 15th

century. In 1649, Jakov Mikalja lists odvjetnica along with the terms učenica „female pupil‟

and učiteljica„female teacher‟ in his dictionary Blago jezika slovinskoga. What is more, the

term učiteljica „female teacher‟ was introduced by Bartol Kašić in his 1641 work.

Recent studies have confirmed that there used to be a regular practice of forming a

name for a female doer of an action in Croatian language. Such forms were included in the

17th- and 18th-century Croatian kajkavian dictionaries (Stolac and Soldo 2015). Furthermore,

feminine occupational terms were frequently coined in the kajkavian standard language (from

the late 16th

century to the appearance of the štokavian standard language in the mid-19th

century (Štebih Golub 2008).

This substantiates the fact that word formation of feminine occupational terms was a

well-established and frequent language practice even in the older Croatian. Evidence for this

claim can be found in dictionaries.

2.2 The development of occupational terms in the 20th century

Significant changes in the labour market were most obvious in the period between the

two World Wars, when women started occupying many hitherto exclusively male professions.

The unequal distribution of men and women between occupations was eradicated to a large

extent. Illustrative of the shift in the interwar period is the article by Croatia‟s first

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professional female journalist Marija Jurić Zagorka, who founded the magazine Hrvatica

(Croatian Woman) in 1939. In the first issue she addressed her future readers, mentioning all

the roles and jobs they occupied at the time, using many feminine nouns denoting females in

all walks of life, prestigious and non-prestigious ones: novinarka „female journalist‟,

spisateljica „female writer‟, voditeljica trgovine „female shop manager‟, poslovotkinja „female

manager‟, prokuristica „female assistant manager‟, odgojiteljica „female pre-school educator‟,

učiteljica „female teacher‟, profesorica „female professor‟, liječnica „female doctor‟,

odvjetnica „female lawyer‟, činovnica „female clerk‟, pekarica „female baker‟, obrtnica

„craftswoman‟, slastičarka „female confectioner‟, švelja „seamstress‟, kitničarka „female

milliner‟, vlasuljarka „female wigmaker‟, domaćica „housewife‟. It is worth pointing out that

she refers to herself in two ways: using a derivative novinarka as well as the analytical form

ženski novinar, with a masculine noun and an adjectival modifier meaning „female‟.8

Along with the changes in the labour sector, the first linguistic discussions on the

subject began. The discussions on feminine forms in Croatian legal texts appeared at the

beginning of the 20th

century (e. g. Grubor 1911).9 They were followed by a discussion on

special forms of gender conversion in Croatian language, published in a 1934 issue of Naš

jezik (Our Language), a linguistic periodical recommended for use in the school system by the

Ministry of Education (in the historical period during the Kingdom of Yugoslavia, Croatia

being its integral part). Its author (Janjanin 1934) substantiates his viewpoint that masculine

and feminine forms for occupational terms should be differentiated and used properly and

consistently. Many articles have since been written on the subject of linguistic gender

inequality (to mention but a few, Barić 1987; Barić 1988; Barić 1989; Silić 2004, etc.).

The feminine forms quite often denoted the meaning of the female spouse of a male

performing some occupation, particularly before the changes in the labour market. When

women entered the labour market spheres, most of the existing forms simply underwent a

semantic transformation, eventually denoting the feminine occupational title. In relation to

word formation, a twofold practice was put in place to provide two different suffixes – one for

the feminine occupational term and the other for a female spouse (cf. e. g. Janjanin 1934;

Vince 1955; Babić 1991: 155, 167).

8 The journal Hrvatica is available in digitalised form: http://dnc.nsk.hr/journals/LibraryTitle.aspx?id=23ec3af4-

8916-49fe-839c-8eca24fa4432# 9 Mamić (1981: 188) states there are no records of feminine nouns indicating the subject or the doer of an action

in Croatian constitutional legislation from the second half of the 19th century. The reason is the fact that women

were neither subjects nor objects in legislative texts – their linguistic invisibility mirrored the sociolinguistic

situation.

http://dnc.nsk.hr/journals/LibraryTitle.aspx?id=23ec3af4-8916-49fe-839c-8eca24fa4432

http://dnc.nsk.hr/journals/LibraryTitle.aspx?id=23ec3af4-8916-49fe-839c-8eca24fa4432

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Croatian linguist Stjepan Babić points out that the particular type of word formation,

conveying the meaning of a female married to a male holding a certain position, occupation,

title (regardless of her own possible occupation), is limited semantically (to approximately 30

nouns in Croatian) and chronologically (since most of these nouns were coined prior to 1960).

Many of them are archaic or of a regional character, more a language possibility than the

actual language usage (Babić 1991: 155, 167). They are also found throughout literary

works.10

Nonetheless, these nouns did not disappear entirely as the language developed; they

are found even in contemporary Croatian. Contemporary dictionaries of Croatian language

still record some of them with both suffixes, occupational and marital, although with

somewhat different normative descriptions. For example, ministrovica is defined as

„minister‟s wife‟ (Anić 1998: 536, exclusively pertaining to the speech level/jargon); whilst

ministrica is the feminine equivalent of the masculine occupational title. Another example is

šefovica, conveying the meaning of „wife of a boss‟ (Anić 1998: 1148, without any labels

specifying the speech level), while šefica denotes „female boss‟. Finally, majstorica is defined

twofold; firstly, as the feminine equivalent for the masculine occupational title „craftsman‟

and, secondly, as „wife of a craftsman‟.11

No linguistic „two-way street‟ has ever been observed in this respect as to the

derivation of masculine nouns describing matrimonial position in relation to a female

occupying a certain position and title; therefore, dictionary entries and usage in general lack

such derivations.

3. Corpus analysis and discussion

The analysis is concerned with three versions of the Croatian National Classification

of Occupations, a document regulating occupational terms, covering the period between 1998

and 2010. It focuses on the gender perspective within the (binary) stratification used in these

classifications, pinpointing asymmetries in the structure of occupational terms and trying to

10

Here are several examples: in the literary works from the 19th century, the noun sudinja denotes 'wife of a

judge' (Vulić and Laco 2015: 210); in the famous early-20th

-century Croatian children's novel Čudnovate zgode

šegrta Hlapića (The Marvellous Adventures of Hlapić the Apprentice) one of the main antagonists is a majstor

„shoemaker', and his wife is referred to as a majstorica, although she herself is not a craftswoman. 11

The print edition of the Anić dictionary does not have the entry majstorica, but it is listed in its online version,

see http: //hjp.znanje.hr/index.php?show=search_by_id&id=e11uURc%3D.

When compared to the Anić dictionary, the other contemporary Croatian dictionary – Rječnik hrvatskoga jezika

edited by Jure Šonje – records only majstorica (2000: 565) out of the highlighted nouns and defines its meaning

in the reversed order: firstly, the matrimonial meaning; secondly, the feminine form for the masculine

occupational term „craftsman‟.

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determine whether the reasons for the underrepresentation of women are primarily

intralinguistic or extralinguistic.

The Croatian National Classification of Occupations is a means for the systematic

collection, processing and presentation of occupational data. It provides a uniform instrument

suitable for use in the employment service, education system, professional orientation,

national statistics, other statistical surveys, science etc. As a national (classification) standard

intended to be mandatory, it was created in accordance with and based on the European

version of the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-88 COM). It is

divided into four levels, classifying occupations into 10 major groups and further subdividing

them into sub-major groups, minor groups and unit groups, based on their similarity in terms

of the skill level and skill specialization required for jobs. The last, fifth level includes single

occupations within these groups. The purpose of the structure is to provide internationally

comparable occupational data and facilitate their exchange. It is mandatory in national

statistics and the European Commission recommends it for use in censuses. Its development

has been coordinated with the Ministry of Economy, Entrepreneurship and Crafts and

Croatian Employment Service.

Three versions of the Classification have been published so far. The first Croatian

National Classification of Occupations entered into force in 1998. It consistently uses generic

masculine expressions. In 2008, the Amendments to the National Classification of

Occupations were passed, codifying for the first time the binary, masculine and feminine

forms for all professions. Two years later, in 2010, a new binary version of the Croatian

National Classification of Occupations was accepted in line with the recent changes in

international standards, also upgrading certain terminological issues.

3.1 The 1998 Croatian National Classification of Occupations

The 1998 Croatian National Classification of Occupations systematically provides

only generic masculine forms for occupational titles on all levels. Nonetheless, it displays

discrepancies within both unit groups and single occupations.

3.1.1 Unit groups

The exclusive visibility of feminine terms is evident in the following unit groups:

medicinske sestre „female nurses‟; primalje „midwives‟; tajnice „female secretaries‟;

zrakoplovne domaćice „female travel attendants‟;12

domaćice i srodna zanimanja „female

12

Within the group zrakoplovne domaćice i brodski poslužitelji „female travel attendants and travel stewards‟.

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domestic housekeepers and related professions‟; vezilje „female embroiderers‟;13

kućne

pomoćnice „female domestic helpers‟; čistačice i posluga „cleaning ladies and domestic staff‟;

pralje i glačarice „hand-laundresses and female pressers‟.

3.1.2 Single occupations

Furthermore, a list of single occupations has also been provided with a number of

feminine terms without their corresponding masculines. Some of the professions listed within

the unit groups are repeated here as well, while others are presented in several versions

conveying the same meaning: primalja „midwife‟; tajnica „female secretary‟; sekretarica

„female secretary‟; sekretarica režije „female script supervisor‟; domaćica zrakoplova „female

flight attendant‟; voditeljica u kabini zrakoplova „lead flight attendant„; zemaljska domaćica

„ground hostess‟; brodska sobarica „ship maid‟; stjuardesa ‟stewardess‟; starija zrakoplovna

domaćica „senior female flight attendant‟; hotelska sobarica „hotel maid‟; paziteljica djece

„childminder‟; dadilja ‟childminder‟; hostesa „hostess‟; gatara „female fortune teller‟;

seljakinja „peasant woman‟; domaćica seoskog turizma „rural tourism female domestic

housekeeper‟; vezilja „female embroiderer‟; kućna pomoćnica „female domestic helper‟;

čistačica „cleaning lady‟; spremačica „female cleaner‟; pralja „laundress‟; glačarica „female

presser‟; striptizeta „female stripper‟.

The instances of linguistic sexism in the 1998 Croatian National Classification of

Occupations are documented in the forms of androcentric generics and asymmetrical

feminines with no masculine counterparts for many typically female-dominated lower-ranking

occupations. It could be argued that, due to extralinguistic factors, seemingly, there was no

need for providing their masculine pairs at the time.

When examining the reasons behind these facts, there are no intralinguistic, word-

forming limitations that could be identified as the cause for offering no occupational motion

pairs in the Classification. On the contrary, both masculine and feminine forms for those

occupations do appear in the subsequent versions of the Classification (see sections 3.2 and

3.3). Moreover, several authors have emphasised that some of the masculine forms not

included in the 1998 Classification actually appeared quite early in Croatian, not later than in

the early 20th

century, but it is clear that they have „disappeared‟ during further development

of the language. Illustrative of the fact is the dictionary Kroatisch-Deutsch und Deutsch-

13

Within the group šivači, vezilje i srodna zanimanja „seamsters, female embroiderers and related workers‟.

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Kroatisch (the 1920s14

) by Ivan Scherzer, which was intended for schools. It includes entries

for masculine and feminine titles for the following occupational titles: gatar/gatara

„male/female fortune teller‟; primalj/primalja „male/female midwife‟ (Scherzer 192-; cf.

Glovacki-Bernardi 2008: 81). The reasons for their “disappearance” from the language are

probably of social, extralinguistic nature – it was predominantly women who occupied these

sectors in the labour market.

These feminine-only occupational titles also reflect the social bias that women cannot

occupy leading positions in the labour market. As a result, no occupational terms for the

leading positions existed at the time.

Croatian linguists Zlatko Vince (1955: 114) and Stjepan Babić (1991: 80) highlight the

interesting semantic data on the masculine form prelac „male spinner‟, also included in the

1998 Classification. It was registered in the language, but it did not denote the male

equivalent for the female spinner in terms of lexis. On the contrary, its meanings covered

other semantic fields: „weak male, avoiding what are considered male tasks and jobs‟, as well

as „type of beans‟, „butterfly species‟ etc. In the 1998 Classification, it obviously conveys the

meaning that stands for the masculine equivalent representing the unmarked form of the

occupation „spinner‟. It attests to the fact that the noun prelac „spinner‟ has undergone a

certain semantic transformation during the language development processes.

3.2 The 2008 Amendments to the National Classification of Occupations

After adopting the measures of the National Policy for the Promotion of Gender

Equality 2006 - 2010, a specific measure was introduced in order to record all the

occupational classifications indicating feminine and masculine forms, as underlined in the

introductory part. In 2008, Croatian Bureau of Statistics, the body responsible for the

execution of the measure, published the Amendments to the National Classification of

Occupations.

Although a novelty approach was implemented, it was obvious that the order

implemented was opposite to the one stated earlier – first masculines, then feminines. The

practice of persistently ordering masculine terms before feminine terms may be interpreted as

the instance of overt linguistic sexism. The primary position of the masculine forms also

reflects the derivational direction criticised by feminist linguists that the feminine forms are

derived from the masculine forms.

14

No specific year of publishing can be found on the pages of Scherzer's dictionary. The imprint of the edition

referred to in this paper specifies only that it is the 12th

edition, printed in Osijek.

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14

Despite significant progress in the occupational stratification model providing both

masculine and feminine occupational titles, the 2008 Amendments also display certain gender

asymmetries. They are evident in minor groups, unit groups and are the most widespread on

the list of single occupations.

3.2.1 Minor groups

In minor groups, the following professions are listed with feminines exclusively:

medicinske sestre i primalje „female nurses and midwives‟; kućne pomoćnice, čistačice,

peračice i srodna zanimanja „female domestic helpers, cleaning ladies, laundresses and

related professions‟. Compared to the 1998 Classification, it is evident that there are fewer

feminine-only titles in the minor groups; therefore, from the linguistic sexism perspective, it

could be argued that some noticeable progress has been made. The reason for not listing their

masculine pairs is again to be found in the social factors. These jobs had traditionally been

performed mostly by women, and the latter minor group is a typical example of the fact that

women usually occupied lower-ranking jobs. Again, there are no intralinguistic constraints to

form masculine nouns, which will be shown in the 2010 Classification analysis (section 3.3),

where almost all of those nouns have both equivalents.

In minor groups, the masculine form only is provided for the profession modeli

„models‟.15

The Croatian noun model (nominative singular form) can be classified as the

epicene with masculine grammatical gender (a-class declension type16

) and both male and

female referents.

3.2.2 Unit groups

Several occupations without masculine forms, found in the minor groups, can also be

found in the unit groups, together with some new examples: medicinske sestre „female

nurses‟; primalje „midwives‟; tajnice „female secretaries‟; zrakoplovne domaćice „female

travel attendants‟;17

domaćice i srodna zanimanja „female domestic housekeepers and related

professions‟; vezilje „female embroiderers‟;18

kućne pomoćnice „female domestic helpers‟;

čistačice i posluga „cleaning ladies and domestic staff; pralje i glačarice „hand-laundresses

and female pressers‟.

15

Within the minor group manekeni/manekenke i modeli „male/female fashion and other models‟. 16

In contemporary Croatian grammars, declension types for nouns are determined according to the genitive case

morpheme of the noun; a-class declension type, e-class declension type, i-class declension type. 17

Within the group zrakoplovne domaćice i brodski poslužitelji/brodske poslužiteljice „female travel attendants

and travel stewards/ travel stewardesses‟. 18

Within the group šivači/šivačice, vezilje i srodna zanimanja „seamsters/seamstresses, female embroiderers and

related professions‟.

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15

When compared to the 1998 unit groups, it is evident from the examples that the 2008

Amendments unit groups are supplemented with two new feminines for the masculine forms –

along with the male ship attendants, there is also the newly added feminine equivalent

brodske poslužiteljice; male seamsters are accompanied with the feminine noun šivačice

„seamstresses‟.

Nonetheless, other titles listed only with feminine forms still lack their masculine

pairs.

Certain titles in the 2008 unit groups, without feminine pairs and with specific

grammatical determinants, are to be explained separately. These nouns end in -a in the

nominative singular; therefore, according to their morphological structure, they belong to the

e-class declension type, typical of most Croatian feminine gender nouns. On the other hand,

their gender as regards declension type does not correspond to what they denote as they are

lexically male nouns. They are often referred to as „masculine a-stems‟ (see Motschenbacher

and Weikert 2015: 71–74) or „hybrid nouns‟ (e. g. Pišković 2011; Marković 2013). However,

it should be stressed here that their grammatical description in terms of gender, sex and noun

class is inconsistently and ambiguously presented throughout Croatian linguistic literature and

dictionaries since identical examples of the nouns in question are often described and

classified differently by various authors.

In these unit groups, there are two e-class declension type nouns of grammatically

masculine gender: knjigoveže i srodna zanimanja „print finishing and binding workers and

related professions‟; pazikuće i srodna zanimanja „building caretakers and related

professions‟. It is necessary to underline the fact that although both knjigoveža and pazikuća

usually denote males, they can denote both males and females (see Babić et al. 2007: 375, cf.

Pišković 2011: 136–159).19

According to these features, they can be classified as common

gender nouns, double-gender nouns (in Croatian, the term is dvorodne imenice, dvorodnice).

In order to avoid the double gender and double reference for the same noun form, it is

possible in Croatian to coin feminine nouns that differ from masculine nouns by using

somewhat different stem and adding suffixes. For the professions in question, the possible

binary pair could be kućepazitelj/kućepaziteljica – it actually appeared in the 2010

Classification (see 3.3.2).

19

Some of these nouns – pazikuća – may denote males exclusively in which case they are classified as hybrid

nouns. They may also denote both males and females, in which case they are classified as common gender

nouns.

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The epicene noun modeli „models‟ from the minor group appears again within the unit

groups.

3.2.3 Single occupations

The list of single occupations shows imbalances in various titles – some occupations

lack masculine pairs, others lack feminine pairs.

The following are the titles without any masculine forms for denoting males in terms

of lexis: servirka „female food server‟; hostesa hotelske ponude „hotel offer hostess‟; balerina

„ballerina‟; stomatološka sestra „stomatological female nurse‟; striptizeta „female stripper‟;

domaćica zrakoplova „female flight attendant‟; stjuardesa „stewardess‟; voditeljica u kabini

zrakoplova „lead female flight attendant‟; starija zrakoplovna domaćica „senior female flight

attendant‟; zemaljska domaćica „ground hostess‟; brodska sobarica „ship maid‟; pomoćna

hotelska domaćica „female assistant hotel housekeeper‟; nadzornica čistoće „female

cleanliness supervisor‟; hotelska domaćica „female hotel housekeeper‟; nadzornica soba

„female room supervisor‟; domaćica kuhinje „kitchen hostess‟; hotelska sobarica „hotel

maid‟; dadilja „childminder‟; paziteljica djece „childminder‟; babica „midwife‟; hostesa

„hostess‟; gatara „female fortune teller‟; kućna pomoćnica „female domestic helper‟;

spremačica „female cleaner‟; čistačica „cleaning lady‟; sobarica „chambermaid‟; pralja

„laundress‟; glačarica „female presser‟.

It is evident from the list that feminine-only titles mostly refer to non-prestigious jobs.

The title stjuardesa „stewardess‟ is not given its masculine form; paradoxically, for the

profession „travel steward/travel stewardess‟, both titles are entered: brodski stjuard/brodska

stjuardesa.

Titles without any feminine equivalents are the following: ataše „attaché‟; krupje

„croupier‟; konferansje „master of ceremonies‟; impresario „impresario‟; diskodžokej „disc

jockey‟; dramski pisac „drama writer‟; pisac „writer‟; tehnički pisac „technical writer‟; pisac

reklamnih poruka „copywriter‟; pisac tekstova za pjesme „lyricist‟; tekstopisac „text writer‟;

pristav „court clerk‟; hotelski teklič „hotel errand-boy‟. The nouns ataše, krupje, konferansje,

impresario and diskodžokej are all of foreign origin in Croatian and can be categorised as the

epicenes, with stable grammatical masculine gender, but referring to both males and females.

Nevertheless, there have been attempts to fit some of them better into Croatian norms and to

form motion pairs, thus eliminating the epicenes. One of the examples of such practice can be

found in the Croatian-English Dictionary by Ţeljko Bujas, published before the 2008

Amendments. It offers a feminine equivalent for croupier: krupjerka „woman croupier‟ (2001:

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595). However, it obviously had no effect on the “legalization” of occupational titles. The

occupational title konferansje „master of ceremonies‟ is a similar case. The Croatian language

dictionary contains entries for masculine and feminine pairs, although the masculine noun is

different than the form in the Amendments: konferansijer/konferansijerka (Šonje 2000: 476);

Bujas‟ Dictionary contains the entry konferansje/konferansjerka (2001: 556), but none of the

two feminine forms recorded in contemporary dictionaries entered the 2008 Amendments.

The occupation pisac „writer‟ has been recorded in various versions on the 2008

Amendments single occupations list. Most of the nouns ending with -(a)c have no feminine

pairs in Croatian due to the word formation constraints (see Barić et al. 1997: 304). The

binary pair spisatelj/spisateljica, denoting the same meaning as pisac, is also frequently used

in the contemporary language practice, as well as listed in the contemporary Croatian

language dictionary (Anić 1998: 1090). It was also included in Scherzer's early 20th

-century

dictionary. These nouns are derived by using a slightly different stem in order to easily derive

the feminine noun from the masculine one, but the language practice was obviously not

incorporated in the 2008 Amendments.

The masculine noun pristav „court clerk‟ has been present in Croatian legal

terminology since the Middle Ages (Margetić 2005), but no feminine form has existed. As

stressed earlier, no feminine forms were included in Croatian constitutional legislatiton even

in the 2nd

half of 19th

century (Mamić 1981). Legal language is usually characterised by high

degree of linguistic conservativism, therefore, it could be the reason why no feminine has

been derived, although there are no intralinguistic constraints to do so. Whatsmore,

extralinguistic situation suggests there are more women performing this occupation. Since the

noun ends in consonant /v/, the feminine form could be pristavka.

The masculine form hotelski teklič „hotel errand-boy‟ could be provided with the

feminine noun tekličica, by analogy with the occupational term vodič „guide‟, with the same

suffix, and its feminine form vodičica.

Among the single-list entries without any feminine nouns there is a distinctive group

of titles with particular sociological, traditional and religious characteristics. These are Roman

Catholic, Orthodox, Islamic and Jewish religious titles. Since these religions do not allow

women to wear the titles in question, there has been no need to derive the nouns that lexically

refer to females: biskup „bishop‟; cardinal „cardinal‟; nadbiskup „archbishop‟; pomoćni

biskup „titular/auxiliary bishop‟; eparh „eparch‟; patrijarh „patriarch‟; mitropolit

„metropolitan‟; arhijerej „archpriest‟; arhiepiskop „archbishop in Eastern Orthodox Church‟;

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episkop „bishop in Eastern Orthodox Church‟; imam „imam‟; glavni imam „grand imam‟;

muftija „mufti‟; generalni vikar „vicar general‟; kapelan „chaplain‟; redovnik „monk‟; brat

laik „lay brother‟; župnik „parish priest‟; pastor „pastor‟; rabin „rabbi‟; kantor „cantor‟; Ďakon

„deacon‟; arhiĎakon „archdeacon‟; ipoĎakon „subdeacon/hypodeacon‟; jeroĎakon

„hierodeacon‟; protoĎakon „protodeacon‟; protojerej „archpriest‟; protonamjesnik „deputy

protopriest‟; jerej „priest‟; jeromonah „hieromonk‟; arhimandrit „archimandrite‟; iguman

„igumen‟; protosinĎel „protosyncellus‟; sinĎel „syncellus‟; mualim „muallim‟; mujezin

„muezzin‟.

The title redovnik „monk‟, listed as masculine-only, can be occupied by women and its

feminine form redovnica is standard in the Croatian language practice, but it has not been

incorporated into the single-occupation list.

In certain branches of Judaism, women can be ordained as rabbis, but this has not

happened in Croatia so far. That is probably the extralinguistic reason why we still do not

have the feminine form for the title rabin. On the other hand, the noun rabin can be classified

as an epicene with the masculine grammatical gender (the a-class declension type) and with

both male and female referential gender (see Pišković 2011: 161).

The only form listed among those religious titles in feminine gender and referring to

females exclusively is časna sestra „nun‟. It has no masculine form due to the same

extralinguistic – social and religious – constraints (cf. Pišković 2011: 166–167).

The following occupations are illustrative of the clash between declension type (e-

class declension type) and referential gender: listonoša „mail carrier‟; pismonoša „mail

carrier‟; drvosječa „lumberman‟; diplomirani kateheta „instructor in catechism‟.

Common gender nouns are also listed: pazikuća „building caretaker‟; voĎa snimanja

„filming producer‟; voĎa posade marine „marine crew captain‟; voĎa plovećega radnog stroja

„marine engine captain‟; voĎa plovećeg jaružala „dredger captain‟; voĎa velikog tehničkog

broda „large vessel captain‟; voĎa palube „boatswain‟; voĎa palube unutarnje plovidbe

„inland navigation boatswain‟; voĎa malog broda „coxswain‟; voĎa stroja „donkeyman‟.

As illustrated in section 3.2.2 for the noun pazikuća, some Croatian linguists have also

noticed that the noun voĎa „chief/head‟ does not have a feminine form, but in contemporary

Croatian it could denote both sexes (e. g. Bošnjak-Botica and Gulešić-Machata 2007),

although normative handbooks have not prescribed it so far (cf. Babić et al. 2007: 301; Silić

and Pranjković 2007: 108). The same could apply to nouns pismonoša and listonoša (see Anić

1998: 490, 759, 1311).

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From the feminist language planning perspective, many of those occupational nouns

could be transformed by implementing other word-formation processes, thus obtaining

occupational nouns that easily produce masculine and feminine forms, such as the

masculine/feminine noun voditelj/voditeljica instead of voĎa.

The examples of epicenes in cases of single occupations are the following: fotomodel

„photo model‟ and umjetnički model „artist‟s model‟.

3.3 The 2010 Croatian National Classification of Occupations

Following the changes in the labour market, a new International Standard

Classification of Occupations ISCO-08 was adopted by the European Commission in 2009.

That was an incentive for the Croatian Bureau of Statistics to create the new Croatian

National Classification of Occupations, harmonized with the recent international standard.

The project was divided in two phases. Its first part was published in 2010, using the four-

level classification: major, sub-major, minor and unit groups. The second phase – the creation

of the list of single occupations within these groups – was to be completed by the end of 2013.

However, as it has not been published at the time of writing of this paper, it was impossible to

include it into the analysis.

Changes have been noticed in the minor and unit groups; the feminisation strategy of

explicit naming of both sexes has resulted in non-sexist, masculine/male and feminine/female

pairs almost in every single case. We can single out here the asymmetries still remaining in

the 2010 version of the Classification.

3.3.1 Minor groups

The minor group kućne pomoćnice, čistačice, peračice i srodna zanimanja „female

domestic helpers, cleaning ladies, laundresses and related professions‟ was changed to fit the

binary model, and in 2010 it was listed as čistači/čistačice, perači/peračice, kućne pomoćnice

i srodna zanimanja „cleaners/cleaning ladies, launderers/laundresses, female domestic helpers

and related professions‟. The profession kućne pomoćnice still lacks its masculine form,

although there are no intralinguistic constraints for forming it. The masculine form could be

kućni pomoćnik.

The 2008 Amendments group medicinske sestre i primalje „female nurses and

midwives‟ was divided in two separate minor groups in 2010: medicinske sestre/medicinski

tehničari „female/male nurses‟ and stručnjaci/stručnjakinje za zdravstvenu njegu i primaljstvo

„male/female experts for health care and midwifery‟.

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The group medicinske sestre/medicinski tehničari „female/male nurses‟ is the only one

in the whole Classification with a reversed order – first feminine and then masculine title. It

thus perpetuates the imagery of nursing as a predominantly female occupation, although the

assumption only became correct in the 19th

century, in the period strongly influenced by

Florence Nightingale and her vision of the nursing profession development (e. g. Licul 2014).

The socio-historical stereotype is also visible in the female firstness Classification order.

Another fact to point out is the asymmetry of the occupational form itself. Instead of reaching

for the antonym brat „brother‟, the masculine occupational term is formed by using the noun

tehničar (literally „technician‟). The applying of this strategy to coin a masculine form could

be seen as an example of hidden, indirect sexism. The “semantic derogation” (Schulz 1975) of

feminine form is also evident: the stereotypical patriarchal family label, domestic marks and

connotations are linked with sestra; and technical expertise imagery is evoked with tehničar,

representing the higher category.

3.3.2 Unit groups

Among the unit groups from 2010 occupational titles represented only with feminine

forms can still be found: vezilje „female embroiderers‟;20

pralje i glačarice „hand-laundresses

and female pressers‟. The Croatian-English Dictionary by Ţeljko Bujas offered glačalac

„launderer/presser/laundry-press operator‟ as a masculine equivalent (2001: 336), but it

obviously had no impact on the 2010 Classification. This again attests to the fact that the

limitations for forming both pairs are only of the socio-cultural nature, not the intralinguistic

one.

In 2010, the unit group kućne pomoćnice „female domestic helpers‟ was merged with

the unit group čistačice i posluga „cleaning ladies and domestic staff‟ to form a new group:

čistači/čistačice i kućne pomoćnice i srodna zanimanja „cleaners/cleaning ladies, female

domestic helpers and related professions‟. It is obvious that the term kućne pomoćnice still has

no masculine form in this group.

The unit groups glavne primalje „head midwives‟ and medicinske sestre-primalje

„female midwifery associate professionals‟, listed with no masculine pairs, are presented

separately. It recalls the case of the first male person in Croatia‟s modern history to achieve a

degree in midwifery. Although the minor group term was reformulated to encompass both

male and female experts for midwifery, the existing Classification has no masculine pair for

20

Within the group šivači/šivačice, vezilje i srodna zanimanja „seamsters/seamstresses, female embroiderers and

related professions‟.

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the unit group level (the single occupation list has not been published yet). When trying to

obtain his licence from the Croatian Chamber of Midwives in 2014, the person in question

encountered problems and his case received media coverage. The Chamber had no legal

mechanisms to issue his licence with the occupational title in referential masculine gender

next to his name. After the ombudswoman for gender equality had raised the issue with the

Chamber in 2016, the regulation was changed and a new title for a male was coined:

primaljski asistent „midwifery assistant‟. The Croatian midwifery handbook from 1875

includes a glossary of midwifery terms. It explains primalj with its Italian and German

synonyms ostetrico and Geburtshelfer, respectively (Kuzmanić 1875: 286).21

Scherzer‟s

dictionary also had the entry primalj. However, during the period of more than a century

between the publishing of the handbook and dictionary and 2016, the masculine form primalj

obviously “disappeared” from the language development processes, probably due to its

infrequent usage in real-life situations. Therefore, paradoxically, we had to reach for a new

solution in 2016, instead of possibly re-using the one that had existed since the late 19th

century.

Some of the occupational titles have been reformulated in order to facilitate the

forming of the feminine pair in the binary model – the former group zrakoplovne domaćice i

brodski poslužitelji/brodske poslužiteljice „female travel attendants and travel stewards/travel

stewardesses‟ has been changed to članovi/članice kabinske posade „male/female travel

attendants and travel stewards/stewardesses. Something similar happened with the terms

knjigoveža „print finishing and binding worker‟ and pazikuća „building caretaker‟, which are

morphologically typical of most feminine gender nouns, but which can denote both males and

females, and their gender according to the agreement is masculine. These occupational terms

have been changed in their unit groups in such a way to facilitate the forming of feminine

nouns according to generative models, using the same stem and different suffixes:

kućepazitelji/kućepaziteljice „male/female building caretakers‟; rukovatelji/rukovateljice

tiskarskim, knjigoveškim i sličnim strojevima „male/female print finishing and binding

workers‟.

Several occupations have also changed their suffixes compared to the 2008

Amendments forms. The feminine title slagarice „female pre-press technicians‟ has been

changed to slagarke. However, the feminine term slagarica can be found in a contemporary

Croatian dictionary (Šonje 2000: 1139), and the newly changed slagarka is not confirmed in

21

The handbook's first chapter describes the term primalja and explicitly stresses that ženske glave 'female

heads' exclusively help with natural births (Kuzmanić 1875: 1).

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contemporary dictionaries. Moreover, adding the suffix -ka to foreign bases ending with -ar, -

er, etc. is a standard, but slagar is not a foreign base. Motschenbacher and Weikert also point

to the fact that the suffix –ka is much more used in Serbian than in Croatian (2015: 62, 64).

The reason for the suffix change may be the fact that, apart from denoting the female person,

slagarica could denote a type of a puzzle game. This semantic ambiguity may thus be evaded

by using the form slagarka to denote a female person.

The masculine title kušatelji namirnica „male food and beverage tasters‟ was changed

to kušači namirnica in 2010. The reason for this probably lies in the more frequent usage of

the latter term and its better adaptation to the word-formation models. Furthermore, kušač is

confirmed in contemporary Croatian dictionaries (see Šonje 2000: 522, Bujas 2001: 607).

The last point to be noticed in the analysis is the masculine single occupation listed in

the 2008 Amendments: ronitelj spužvi i koralja „the sponge and coral underwater diver‟. The

2010 Classification unit group now has the plural term ronioci „underwater divers‟ and its

nominative singular form is ronilac. The term ronitelj is more productive because its feminine

form is more easily derived by only adding the suffix to the masculine form – roniteljica. In

the case of the form ronilac, the noun ronilica exists, but semantically it denotes „type of

underwater vessel‟ and one has to reach for the noun roniteljica as a feminine form.

Regardless, the strong and frequently used language practice and the standard Croatian

contemporary dictionaries have verified only ronilac as the normative form (see Šonje 2000:

1086; Anić 1998: 1015; cf. Frančić et al. 2006: 175). The 2010 Classification obviously

adhered to the norm and confirmed the status of the noun ronilac by listing it into its groups.

4. Conclusion

After analysing a large corpus of occupational terms in three different versions of the

Croatian National Classification of Occupations published between 1998 and 2010, the results

suggest that a significant language change in the form of implementation of the gender-

differentiated occupational terms has been taking place and that this change has been

successful to an extent. A study in 2012 showed that the percentage of gender-equal job

advertisements in Croatian daily newspapers is increasing year after year (Glovacki-Bernardi

2012: 150). 22

A more recent studies assessing the use of feminine forms in Croatian language

22

A degree of resistance to feminist reforms in this respect may be illustrated by two anecdotes. The first one

involves a company owner, whose secretary informed him on the gender equality ombudswoman‟s warning that

their company‟s job advertisements have to include a clear indication that persons of both sexes may apply for

the job in question. He reacted with disbelief, discarding it as an unimportant issue. He posted such a note on a

social network, but he later deleted it. Another company‟s job advertisement was an example of indirect sexism.

AUTHOR'S POST-PRINT



23

practice, in everyday spoken language as well as different discourses, have confirmed that

feminine forms for occupations are used frequently (Martinović 2015; Medved 2017).

The three versions of the Classification reflect the language changes and splits. The

newer versions of the National Classification of Occupations exhibit more diversity in terms

of the linguistic representation of women – gradually evolving from the dominant

androcentric principle in the 1998 Classification, then introducing the dichotomous,

grammatical masculine-feminine model in the 2008 Amendments and then developing female

linguistic visibility further in the 2010 Classification. It confirms that the reasons for the

asymmetries concerning the motion pairs that specify professions are predominantly caused

by extralinguistic, not morphological factors.

The forming of feminine occupational terms constitutes the tradition in Croatian

language development. As a result of language developments, more and more feminine forms

have been coined and frequently used in the spoken language. The native speakers of Croatian

got used to them and started using them in everyday situations. It can be stated that equality in

respect of the occupational terms was first achieved in the language practice, and then slowly

codified in legislative documents. Although gender-correct occupational forms have been

spontaneously used in the daily language practice (cf. Glovacki-Bernardi 2012), the attempts

to adopt and spread non-sexist language changes by codifying the gender-aware terms

continued at a slower pace, sometimes even ignoring the solutions already incorporated in

contemporary dictionaries or in older ones, as well as in the everyday usage of the language.

The analysis of the occupational nouns confirms the fact that the change in Croatian is

underway; perhaps progressing slowly, but nevertheless incorporating sociolinguistic and

cultural changes, habits and the current reality of its language community into its terminology.

Although significant efforts have been made to ensure that the feminine occupational

terms are listed on an equal footing with masculine ones, it is important to note that the binary

model still displays certain asymmetries and constraints. It is still implicitly androcentric:

feminine forms occupy the secondary position in the binary structure and are mostly derived

from masculine nouns, which are still inherently perceived as the norm/basis to start from.

Although there are no intralinguistic limitations among the examples analysed, they are

evident socially and historically. Groups of nouns with feminine forms only exemplify the

male bias against certain professions. It is also evident that many of the exclusively feminine

Although there was a clear indication that persons of both sexes may apply, the videos were stereotypically

implying that cashiers and cleaners are women, and warehouse workers men. They were also warned by the

Gender Equality Office.

AUTHOR'S POST-PRINT



24

nouns are associated with non-prestigious occupations. On the other hand, the exclusively

masculine nouns are not associated with such occupations. The only noun where female bias

is shown is the nursing profession. Finally, some of the occupational terms in the

classifications, which denoted male referents, but with a typically feminine declension type,

were reluctantly replaced with other nouns, although the new entries were more productive in

when it comes to word formation. Furthermore, the intralinguistic (lexical) factors such as

word formation restrictions for certain professions (for example pisac), which can cause

imbalances, can be overcome by offering other solutions that facilitate the forming of the

male/female pairs. The justifiability of using epicenes, such as pazikuća, is also questionable

in this context, especially in the light of other occupational titles conveying the same meaning

and with both masculine and feminine equivalents.

Nevertheless, the everyday language practice confirms that the gender-specific usage

has become widespread in the modern Croatian language, but there are challenges in the

lexical aspect of “codified” occupational terminology, since it still reflects numerous social

stereotypes. It remains to be seen whether both masculine and feminine occupational terms

will be used with similar frequency in the future, thus acknowledging the language history

and tradition on the one hand, and social and cultural characteristics on the other.

AUTHOR'S POST-PRINT



25

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